1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, an image forming apparatus, a print-data generation method, a map-information generation method, and a computer program product.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, an Application Service Provider (ASP) that provides various services is frequently used with an application program installed in a server device connected to the Internet. Data of a processing result by the ASP is transmitted from the server device that has performed processing to a client terminal, which has requested the processing, and after the client terminal displays and confirms the data, the client terminal transmits the data to a printer to print the data. Therefore, this process causes a problem of heavy network load.
To solve this problem, a printing system that prints data according to a printing instruction from the client terminal has been disclosed (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2003-131983). In such a printing system, after an application instructed from the client terminal is executed, print data generated by the server device is transmitted to the printer and printed according to a printing instruction. Therefore, data transmission to the client terminal and data transmission from the client terminal to the printer are not required, to thereby reduce the network load.
In the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2003-131983, however, every time the application is executed by the server device, the whole print data is transmitted even if there is only a minor change in the data. Therefore, there is still a room for further reduction of the network load.
Further, even in a case of using a format that is stylized like an order form, and print data is completed by changing a part of data, print data is generated every time printing is instructed, and the print data itself is exchanged on the network. Therefore, there is still heavy load on the network, the server device, and the printer.